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Introduction
Halfway into the Mi Mix 2's product cycle, Xiaomi releases the Mi Mix 2S, an incremental update to the Mix 2, or a successor and a half to the original Mi Mix. The Mix was the first smartphone to push Android's limits by incorporating a display that was taller than 16:9, thus calling for Android to change its design rules and introducing OEMs with a new hardware dimension to play around with.
The Mi Mix 2S is a step forward for the Mix series in that it puts a stronger focus on the overall camera experience (it has a brighter f/1.8 and larger 1.4 micron pixels). Despite its premium hardware design, Xiaomi manages to keep the phone's cost below the entry-level iPhone price, and the camera department was a cost-effective element on the previous Mix devices. The Mi Mix 2S got an overall score of 97 with DxO Mark so we certainly have high expectations from this camera.
Camera aside, the Mi Mix 2S does not have too many physical differences against the Mi Mix 2. The display is the same 6-inch display with an 18:9 aspect ratio with an IPS LCD display panel. Although the handset's footprint is barely smaller than the Mi Mix 2, the Mix 2S is less than half a mm thicker to accommodate a Qi wireless charging coil - the first one on any Xiaomi device ever and the first on any smartphone with a ceramic back.
Xioami Mi Mix 2S Specs
- Body: Aluminum frame, ceramic back, 2.5D Gorilla Glass 4
- Screen: 6.0-inch IPS LCD, 18:9, FHD+, 403 ppi, rounded corners
- Rear camera: 12MP (Sony IMX363) 1.4μm, f/1.8 + 12MP telephoto (Samsung S5K3M3) 1.0μm, f/2.4, 2X optical zoom, dual pixel autofocus, dual-LED flash, AI scene detection
- Video recording: 4K video recording @30fps, 1080p @30fps, High frame rate: 1080p @ 120fps or 720p @ 240fps, OIS main camera only
- Front Camera: Below-display 5MP 1.12μm, f/2.0, 1080p@30fps
- Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 845, Kryo 385 (8x custom Cortex-A75 @ up to 2.8GHz), Adreno 630GPU
- Memory: 6GB + 64GB/128GB or 8GB + 256GB (non-expandable memory)
- OS: Android 8.0 Oreo with MIUI 9.5
- Battery: 3,400 mAh; Quick Charge 3.0
- Connectivity: dual nanoSIM with dual 4G, VoLTE, 4X4 MIMO, Cat. 18 LTE speeds (1.2Gbps), dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth 5.0, GPS/GLONASS, NFC, USB 2.0 Type-C
- Audio: Mono loudspeaker
- Misc: Rear-mounted fingerprint scanner, ultrasonic proximity sensor, Qi Wireless charging
The Mi Mix 2S also brings the updated Snapdragon 845 CPU and a more expansive 256GB storage option. Like the Mi Mix 2, the 2S still has neither a microSD slot, nor a 3.5 mm headphone jack. Also like the previous Mix devices, the Mix 2S does not carry an official ingress protection rating, so keep this guy away from water.
Xiaomi Mi Mix 2S Unboxing
The Mi Mix 2S comes in a flat box and includes the basics. Opening the box lid, we see the phone and power adapter on the side. Under the phone is a flat box with a pretty soft-matte case, a SIM tool, and a USB-C to 3.5mm headphone jack adapter.
For those wondering, the charger is rated for three different modes of power output: 5V @ 3A, 9V @ 2A, and 12V @ 1.5A. Xiaomi also showed us its official wireless charger. To keep costs down, it doesn't come with its own power adapter. Instead, the wireless charger takes a USB-C plug. It is rated to be used with an 18W power brick, but we'd recommend you stick with the Xiaomi one.
The charger itself is slim, minimalistic, and has a soft rubber texture. We like the simplistic design but the white rubber material grabs on to dust pretty well so expect to wipe this down with a damp cloth every once in a while.
Next up, we take a closer look at the actual handset and dig deep into the hardware's ins and outs.
Ceramic design
The hardware design is unchanged from the Mi Mix 2, although, there is one or two main differences in appearance. For one, the Mi Mix 2S has Xiaomi's updated dual-camera and has placed it over to the top left while its rear-mounted fingerprint sensor's placement has remained untouched. The vertical camera setup's appearance and location are quite explicitly designed to look like an iPhone X's.
We'll come back to the phone's backside in the a bit. Let's start with the front of this beauty. The face of the Mi Mix 2S is adorned Gorilla Glass 4 and there's a 6-inch LCD display underneath with 1080p+ resolution. If you blink, you might miss the phone's in-call receiver, whose sound was routed right to the edge of the glass for maximum space saving.
The display features gently curved corners to accentuate the phone's slim bezels. Although there is no notch above the display like the Huawei P20 or the iPhone X, the phone does have a thick lower bezel where the front-facing camera lives in the lower-right corner. The light sensor and LED notification light are also housed in the lower bezel.
Lower bezel • LED notification light
Granted, the camera's placement is a little awkward, but this is easily circumvented by flipping the phone all the way around while using the front camera. It's not ideal, but it seems to work okay.
The phone's frame is cool to the touch and nicely wraps all the way around the phone and the black model has a nice matte finish which contrasts the shiny glass and glossy back very well. The top has a couple of antenna notches and a noise-cancelling mic. The only buttons are on the right of the phone: a volume rocker above a power key. These buttons are made of the same smooth matte black metal.
There aren't any keys on the left, but there is a dual-SIM tray that takes nano SIMs. At the bottom is a single USB-C port and a-symmetrical grilles. To the left is a single mic-hole for calls and the other quad-holed port is the loudspeaker. Although the phone is not water resistant, Xiaomi still found the need to get rid of the headphone jack so you'll need a headphone adapter for non-Bluetooth headphones.
The fingerprint scanner and camera setup are completely surrounded by ceramic. The fingerprint scanner is centered along the back of the phone and its appearance is glossy, so it must be made of glass. This sensor is slightly recessed so it's quite easy to find just by feeling around. The camera is no longer above the sensor so there's a much lower chance of you smudging it with you're a finger.
The camera setup, like the iPhone X's, has a bump and sticks out of the back of the phone. The main camera does feature OIS so it needs some room to move around. The dual-LED flash sits right between the two sensors, more on those specifics in the camera section. Finally, the camera bump features a gold-plated accent ring that contrasts the phone beautifully. On the white model, this camera ring is plated with silver.
Getting around to the back of the phone, here is the phone's standout hardware feature: its ceramic back plate. Along with the plated camera ring, we expect to see far less wear on the back and camera ring over extended periods of usage.
Photos may not do it justice, but the black ceramic back plate has a distinct appearance and is very different from that of black glass. The black glossy finish is far more reflective than glass but this does come with a downside: fingerprint smudges are much more apparent. The white model does a far better job of hiding fingerprints, if this is a concern.
In the hand, the phone has a very premium feel to it. The phone feels dense and thin at the same time. Meanwhile, the tapered edges of the ceramic backing curve gently into the frame for a pebble or stone like feel. The rounded corners compliment the phone's ergonomics. Aside from being a fingerprint magnet, this is a slippery phone.
Perhaps not in this iteration, but for Xiaomi's next Mix device or a limited edition Mi Mix 2S, we'd love to see a version with a matte ceramic finish. This would certainly make the phone feel completely different in hand and may offer better grip.
Display
The Mi Mix 2S has the same display as the Mix 2, which Xiaomi introduced as its "Full screen display 2.0". It's a 5.99-inch LCD display with 18:9 aspect ratio: the golden standard in smartphones these days. Xiaomi says the phone is capable of 585 nits of brightness, which should yield some pretty good sunlight legibility. We will be testing for this number as well.
With the original Mi Mix, Xiaomi was the first Android smartphone to approach Google to push the aspect ratio past 16:9, which was Android's requirement. Since then, companies have been adopting taller displays to keep phones compact as displays got bigger. We can't rule out the possibility of a notch. Although the company doesn't have a phone with one, the Mix series is the most likely candidate, unless Xiaomi would rather innovate something superior to a notch solution.
In fact, Xiaomi's ultimate goal is to one day make a totally bezel-less smartphone without a notch. Until then, the company has found it necessary to include the front camera, light sensor, and LED notification light in the lower bezel.
Display test | 100% brightness | ||
Black, cd/m2 | White, cd/m2 | ||
0 | 679 | ∞ | |
0 | 623 | ∞ | |
0.45 | 589 | 1309 | |
0.37 | 551 | 1489 | |
0.409 | 519 | 1269 | |
0.4 | 515 | 1287 | |
0.311 | 507 | 1629 | |
0.375 | 453 | 1208 | |
0.278 | 453 | 1629 | |
0 | 440 | ∞ | |
0 | 437 | ∞ | |
0 | 422 | ∞ | |
0.379 | 387 | 1020 |
The Mi Mix 2S didn't quite reach the promised 585 nits brightness but it was able to go past 500nits when we switched the display mode to the "Increased Contrast" setting. This yielded a brighter 519 nits while the default display mode didn't budge past 453. This display is able to get quite dim, though. We measured a minimum brightness of 0.9, which is lower than many smartphone displays out there.
The display's colors are quite neutral and some UI elements might even look washed out since MIUI's settings menu is made up of very pale colors and many may be used to a more saturated screens and interfaces. Otherwise, this is a bright and vibrant display.
There are two settings for calibrating the Mi Mix 2S' display: one is the adjustment of the white point, which can be switched between default/cool/warm, or you can manually set it on a color sphere. The other setting is automatic/increased/standard contrast.
With the "Default" color tone and "Automatic contrast" settings, the Mi Mix 2S yielded an average DeltaE of 5.1 with a max DeltaE of 10.7 @ whites, which carry a generally cool appearance. We found the most accurate color setting to be the "Default" white point with the "standard contrast" setting. This option yielded an average DeltaE of 2.9 with a max DeltaE of 7.5, also at whites which can afford to be a touch warmer.
Battery
The Mi Mix 2S has the same 3,400 mAh battery pack as the Mi Mix 2 and offers Qualcomm's Quick Charge 3.0. We expect battery life to be similar to the Mix 2 since the Snapdragon 845 generally offers a bump in performance with about the same battery efficiency as the Snapdragon 835.
The Mi Mix 2S is the first Xiaomi smartphone to support wireless charging. In fact, it is also the first smartphone to combine wireless charging with a ceramic back-plate. Ceramic is a non-conductive material like glass, so it doesn't interfere with radio or electromagnetic waves.
The Mix 2S will be able to charge wirelessly at up to 7.5 watts with any Qi-compatible charger. The company also announced a first-party wireless charger for RMB 99 (about $15). We might expect to see them go for $20 in the States.
Disclaimer: These are not the results we were expecting - the screen-off ones at least. Standby battery draw was unusually high for this combination of chipset and battery capacity. This could be due to running early software on our Chinese review unit. We shall retest this once we are able to get a final retail unit for the intended market.
Our endurance rating denotes how long a single battery charge will last you if you use the Xiaomi Mi Mix 2S for an hour each of telephony, web browsing, and video playback daily. We've established this usage pattern so our battery results are comparable across devices in the most common day-to-day tasks. The battery testing procedure is described in detail in case you're interested in the nitty-gritties. You can also check out our complete battery test table, where you can see how all of the smartphones we've tested will compare under your own typical use.
MIUI 9.5 offers plenty of battery saving options. You can select how apps should behave on a per-app basis or you can leave everything as-is and MIUI will try to prioritize what it thinks won't interfere with push notifications, music apps, and so on. The battery homepage shows you the estimated time remaining, and even monitors the battery's operating temperature.
Power: options • panel • suggestions
If you enable the battery saver, it stays on even while the phone is charging. Battery saver automatically turns off once it charges past 60%. There are options for scheduling battery saver and you can even schedule when the phone should power down and power on before an alarm goes off.
Power saver • App battery saver
There are a couple of "smart scenes" for saving battery life. The phone will assume you're asleep and mute notifications, restrict wireless activity like Bluetooth, NFC, and Wi-Fi. Meanwhile, "Non-interactive mode" is kind of like a more hands-on version of Doze - when the phone isn't being actively used, neither the display nor LED notification light will activate with new notifications and touch sensors will be turned off.
Loudspeaker
There's a single bottom-firing loudspeaker on the Mi Mix 2S. The grilles are no longer symmetrical like they were on the Mix 2. There's a single mic hole to the left of the USB-C port and a quad-holed speaker grille to the right.
Speakerphone test | Voice, dB | Ringing |
Overall score | |
68.4 | 73.2 | 69.9 | Good | |
66.2 | 70.4 | 78.2 | Good | |
68.6 | 69.9 | 77.8 | Good | |
68.9 | 74.0 | 76.2 | Very Good | |
68.1 | 70.1 | 81.5 | Very Good | |
74.0 | 68.3 | 78.0 | Very Good | |
67.6 | 71.0 | 82.7 | Very Good | |
68.4 | 74.0 | 80.1 | Very Good | |
64.2 | 72.8 | 86.0 | Very Good | |
70.1 | 73.8 | 84.2 | Excellent |
The loudspeaker is quite loud and doesn't distort at higher volumes. The downside to this loudspeaker is that the lower-mids and bass tones sound muffled. It's loud enough to show a video to a friend or two, but music was definitely not meant to be heard on the Mi Mix 2S' loudspeaker. Notifications, ringtones, and speakerphone, calls are all plenty loud.
Audio quality
The first iteration of the Mi Mix has a 3.5mm headphone jack at the top but Xiaomi removed it for the Mi Mix 2 and and the Mix 2S is no different. You'll need a USB-C to 3.5mm jack adapter to use your favorite headphones.
The Xiaomi Mi Mix 2s did nicely in the active external amplifier part of our test. Impeccable accuracy and nicely high volume add up to one of the best performances out there.
The loudness was just as impressive with headphones on, which was a great start. The stereo crosstalk increased by an above-average amount, but it's not too bad, while the other readings saw little change - certainly nothing you'd notice in real life use. A very solid performance all in all.
Test | Frequency response | Noise level | Dynamic range | THD | IMD + Noise | Stereo crosstalk |
+0.03, -0.00 | -93.0 | 93.0 | 0.0034 | 0.0079 | -92.5 | |
+0.28, -0.05 | -93.4 | 93.4 | 0.0037 | 0.174 | -47.2 | |
+0.02, -0.02 | -94.3 | 94.3 | 0.0038 | 0.0072 | -93.5 | |
+0.31, -0.01 | -93.3 | 93.3 | 0.016 | 0.243 | -63.8 | |
+0.02, -0.31 | -38.8 | 81.7 | 0.0013 | 4.690 | -95.9 | |
+0.25, -0.23 | -93.3 | 90.4 | 0.0045 | 0.227 | -53.9 | |
+0.02, -0.01 | -92.6 | 92.6 | 0.0021 | 0.012 | -94.4 | |
+0.17, -0.03 | -92.0 | 92.1 | 0.0023 | 0.092 | -52.8 | |
+0.01, -0.03 | -92.1 | 92.2 | 0.0038 | 0.0085 | -90.0 | |
+0.30, -0.07 | -91.7 | 91.8 | 0.022 | 0.206 | -72.4 | |
+0.02, -0.02 | -93.4 | 93.2 | 0.0025 | 0.012 | -90.8 | |
+0.20, -0.37 | -93.4 | 93.0 | 0.015 | 0.320 | -55.7 | |
+0.01, -0.03 | -94.0 | 94.0 | 0.0018 | 0.011 | -93.7 | |
+0.15, -0.09 | -94.3 | 94.3 | 0.0071 | 0.135 | -60.1 |
Xiaomi Mi Mix 2s frequency response
You can learn more about the tested parameters and the whole testing process here.
MIUI 9.5 over Android 8.0
Xiaomi's Android skin has seen a lot of popularity over the years, particularly in European and Chinese markets. MIUI is very reminiscent of iOS and is one of the more heavily modified OEM skins.
Despite its big difference to vanilla Android, MIUI 9.5 runs smooth and looks pretty. Starting off, there is no app drawer, and there's never really been one in MIUI except for a few custom themes that offer the shortcut. Of course, you can always install a third-party launcher if you really miss the app drawer.
There are subtle animations in the app icons as you return to the home screen after using them. This is a nice touch and not something we're used to seeing. Sadly, only some app icons will animate. Otherwise, the flat, square icons with rounded corners remind us a lot of iOS. There are a few things that MIUI does that are similar to iOS, which we'll get to in a bit.
Here are the default home screens on the Mi Mix 2S. There's a weather widget in the upper right corner across from a large clock widget. When this clock widget is in view, the clock in the status bar disappears until you swipe away from it. The icons in the default 'Rhodium' theme are round and have some depth and shading, so they don't look completely flat.
A swipe to the right reveals shortcuts to frequently used apps and a peek at Mi Notes and upcoming calendar events. According to MIUI forums, this page can only be disabled on the Chinese version of the ROM. Swiping up on any home screen will bring up the Google app and swiping down will pull down the notification shade so you don't have to play finger aerobics to reach the top.
App Vault • Vault settings • Add new shortcut to Vault
As far as launcher customization, there aren't very many settings to change, which keeps it simple for most. You can change the default launcher right from the MIUI launcher's settings.
There are plenty of pre-loaded wallpapers to choose from as well and a whole bunch more you can download from the Themes app.
Xiaomi's got three pre-loaded themes, the default one has square and flat app icons. Rhodium has rounder and more intricate app icons with more depth in the shading of the icons. Finally, the Limitless theme has more abstract icons two-dimensional icons.
Themes: Home • Preloaded • Preview
There are plenty of pre-loaded utility apps for getting things done. Google Apps and the Microsoft Office suite come pre-packaged with the Global version of the phone with plenty of other tools as well. Such useful apps include: Voice/screen recorders, barcode/document scanner, compass/level, file manager, music player, notes, Mi Browser, and Facebook comes pre-installed.
You should know that MIUI is really an Android skin of its own in that a lot of the settings are in different places and it doesn't necessarily behave like vanilla Android does. For example, you won't find the screen timeout setting under "Display" like virtually every other Android device - it's actually in the lock screen settings under "Sleep". There is also no way to edit the quick settings directly from the notification shade, you have to go to "Notifications & status bar" under "Toggle positions".
Speaking of notifications, MIUI treats them more like iOS: pretty messy. Notifications don't appear in the lock screen by default and notification icons don't appear in the status bar. Instead, there is a single overflow icon "..." that shows in the status bar when there is one or more unseen notifications.
The notification drawer accumulates chronologically until you either tap on them or swipe them away. Notifications don't group together as per typical Android behavior, so while it's not entirely like iOS, it's also not entirely like Android, notifications are somewhere in the middle.
To make notifications behave as they are meant to in Android, enable "Show notification icons" and enable "Lock screen notifications" in each app's notification settings. You can always pull the notification shade down in the lock screen so you can enjoy the wallpaper, but you'd need to enable "Show on lock screen" in the Notification & Status bar settings.
Notification shade • No notification icons • Show notification icons • Toggle order
Four quick toggles are arranged at the top of the notification shade and there are a few more if you pull down again.
Recent apps look very much like the iOS app switcher. Apps are aligned next to each other and you flick them up to close them. This feels really familiar and it also feels like a waste of space. There's a Split-screen button at the top, so use split screen, drag a recent app towards the top and then select a second one. If you press the Home button, you'll still have the option of returning to your split-screen session.
Recent apps • Drag to start split-screen • Split screen session
Setting up a fingerprint requires an alternative lock method, as usual. The actual fingerprint scanner is quite fast - a quick tap of the sensor instantly unlocks the Mi Mix 2S.
The "Full Screen Display" option in the Settings is where you can customize the navigation bar. If you'd rather switch the positions of the Back and Recents buttons, you can mirror their order. Here, you can also completely disable the navigation bar in favor of gesture navigation controls, much like the iPhone X has. Swipe up to go home, Swipe up and hold for multitasking, and swipe in from either the left or right edge to go "Back".
Full Screen Display Settings • Gesture controls
Xiaomi is open with its OS and we like that the company makes it relatively easy for customers to unlock their bootloaders with its comprehensive MIUI support website. Xiaomi also offers Beta builds for those who'd like to check out an update earlier than others. The MIUI site also hosts stable builds in case someone wants to revert to stock.
Xiaomi phones are among the longest-supported smartphones when it comes to software. Proof of this is when a popular device from 2013, the Mi 2/2S was updated to MIUI 9, the last version of Xiaomi's UI.
Performance
The Xiaomi Mi Mix 2S packs the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 CPU, which is currently top of the line for mobile devices from Qualcomm. It is an octa-core chip on the 10nm process with a quad-core 2.8GHz Kryo Gold cluster and a quad-core 1.8 GHz Kryo Silver cluster. The default GPU pairing on the 845 is the Adreno 630.
The spec'd out model brings 256GB of storage with 8GB of RAM (as tested), otherwise - 6GB pairs with either 64 or 128GB of storage in the mid and entry level tiers.
In GeekBench, the Mi Mix 2S topped the charts for both the single and multi-core scores against the Samsung Galaxy S9+ with the same chipset. Its Exynos 9810 was still ahead of the Mi Mix 2S in the single-core test while the iPhone X led scores for both with the iPhone 8 Plus trailing right behind.
GeekBench 4.1 (single-core)
Higher is better
- Apple iPhone X
4256 - Apple iPhone 8 Plus
4232 - Samsung Galaxy S9+
3771 - Xiaomi Mi MIx 2S
2468 - Samsung Galaxy S9+ (Snapdragon)
2199 - Samsung Galaxy Note8
1987 - OnePlus 5T
1960 - Xiaomi Mi Mix 2
1924 - Huawei P20 Pro
1907 - Huawei Mate 10 Pro
1902 - LG V30
1901 - Meizu 15 Plus
1863 - Samsung Galaxy Note8 (Snapdragon)
1862
Although not many Snapdragon 845 devices are available on the market just yet, there is still drastic gap between Apple and Qualcomm chips in single core tests.
Multi-core tests are a little closer behind, but Apple's A11 Bionic CPU still tops the leaderboards.
GeekBench 4.1 (multi-core)
Higher is better
- Apple iPhone X
10215 - Apple iPhone 8 Plus
10037 - Xiaomi Mi MIx 2S
9158 - Samsung Galaxy S9+
8883 - Samsung Galaxy S9+ (Snapdragon)
8349 - Samsung Galaxy Note8
6784 - Huawei Mate 10 Pro
6783 - OnePlus 5T
6701 - Huawei P20 Pro
6679 - Samsung Galaxy Note8 (Snapdragon)
6590 - LG V30
6365 - Xiaomi Mi Mix 2
6234 - Meizu 15 Plus
6122
In the all-around Antutu 7 benchmark, it's Androids-only. The Mi Mix 2S leads the pack with the Galaxy S9+ logically behind as a close second. The Exynos-powered S9+ is not too much farther behind and here, the HiSilicon Kirin 970 looks like it came from 2017 (wait, it did!).
AnTuTu 7
Higher is better
- Xiaomi Mi MIx 2S
270814 - Samsung Galaxy S9+ (Snapdragon)
264044 - Samsung Galaxy S9+
246660 - Huawei P20 Pro
209884 - Samsung Galaxy Note8
201065 - LG V30
182374
The Mi Mix 2S bested all the other devices in all other GFX benchmark tests. Aside from having the best processor of the bunch, the Mix 2S has an edge over the Galaxy S9+ in terms of resolution - the Galaxy S9+ needs to push more pixels with its QHD+ resolution while the Mi Mix 2S breezes through with 1080p+. However, in the off-screen tests, the Galaxy S9+ and Mi Mix 2S are neck-and-neck.
GFX 3.1 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)
Higher is better
- Xiaomi Mi MIx 2S
61 - Samsung Galaxy S9+ (Snapdragon)
61 - Samsung Galaxy S9+
47 - Apple iPhone X
44 - Samsung Galaxy Note8 (Snapdragon)
43 - Samsung Galaxy Note8
42 - OnePlus 5T
41 - LG V30
41 - Huawei P20 Pro
40 - Huawei Mate 10 Pro
38 - Xiaomi Mi Mix 2
37
GFX 3.1 Manhattan (onscreen)
Higher is better
- Xiaomi Mi MIx 2S
55 - Apple iPhone X
51 - Huawei P20 Pro
37 - Huawei Mate 10 Pro
35 - OnePlus 5T
35 - Samsung Galaxy S9+ (Snapdragon)
34 - Xiaomi Mi Mix 2
32 - Samsung Galaxy S9+
24 - Samsung Galaxy Note8
23 - Samsung Galaxy Note8 (Snapdragon)
20 - LG V30
19
GFX 3.1 Car scene (1080p offscreen)
Higher is better
- Xiaomi Mi MIx 2S
35 - Samsung Galaxy S9+ (Snapdragon)
35 - Samsung Galaxy S9+
28 - Xiaomi Mi Mix 2
25 - Samsung Galaxy Note8 (Snapdragon)
25 - Samsung Galaxy Note8
25 - OnePlus 5T
24 - LG V30
24 - Huawei P20 Pro
23 - Huawei Mate 10 Pro
22
GFX 3.1 Car scene (onscreen)
Higher is better
- Xiaomi Mi MIx 2S
34 - Xiaomi Mi Mix 2
24 - OnePlus 5T
22 - Huawei P20 Pro
21 - Huawei Mate 10 Pro
21 - Samsung Galaxy S9+ (Snapdragon)
20 - Samsung Galaxy S9+
14 - Samsung Galaxy Note8 (Snapdragon)
13 - Samsung Galaxy Note8
13 - LG V30
13
The Mi Mix 2S is very well optimized in MIUI 9.5 and the generous 8GB of RAM allow it to breeze through multitasking and the whole user-experience is free of stutters, not even a flutter.
The only place where you might notice a difference in performance between the Mi Mix 2 and the Mi Mix 2S is if you play graphic-intensive mobile games. Otherwise, the performance difference between the Snapdragon 835 and Snapdragon 845 is not very big and not enough to justify upgrading from the 835 for this single reason.
The camera might be a reason that one would upgrade from the Mi Mix 2, since it's much improved. Let's take a look at the Camera's UI and some samples to see if it lives up to expectations.
One Mix, 2 Cameras
The Mi Mix 2S isn't the first Xiaomi device to come with dual cameras, though it is the first Mix device to have two eyes. The Mi Mix 2S's cameras are 12MP with dual pixel autofocus. The main camera is a relatively new Sony IMX363 sensor with 1.4 micron pixels, features a fast f/1.8 aperture, and is optically stabilized. The secondary sensor is a Samsung S5K3M3 with smaller 1 micron pixels and a slower f/2.4 aperture.
This second lens is a telephoto one, so the dual cameras system uses the wide + tele combo like the iPhone and not the RGB + Mono combo that Huawei uses. The Mi Mix 2S' dual camera achieves 2X optical zoom. The second telephoto sensor is not optically stabilized.
New to the Mi Mix 2S is Xiaomi's "Hardware-level multi-frame noise reduction", which is what Samsung, Google (on the Pixels), and HTC use to get those crispy photos by processing multiple frames of the shot. It also introduces Xiaomi's AI dual camera, which first debuted on the Redmi Note 5. The camera can detect up 206 scenes across 25 categories and uses "AI" for portrait shots and beautification.
Xiaomi says it has put a lot of effort into improving the beautify mode, which is very popular in Asian countries. Xiaomi was so dedicated that it hired makeup artists to give the (male) software engineers makeovers in an effort to help them understand how to beautify certain areas of the face.
The camera app is much refined over the Mi Mix 2's. There is no longer a drawer of cameras modes. To access additional modes, swipe to scroll through them as you would on an iPhone. The buttons around the UI are dynamic and change depending on what mode is active. Off the top of our heads, Samsung and Huawei have also made its camera UI like this on the P20 and Galaxy S9.
Camera: AI • Filters • Video • Square
AI scene detection: Water • Greenery • Clouds
There are a few shooting tools in the menu overflow and even a tilt-shift option. There's a group selfie mode, which takes multiple shots and compiles one where each person looks best, and there's a straightening tool, which shows you a level using the phone's gyroscopic sensors, and a beautify option for the main camera. These tools don't show up in all the shooting modes, but the only one that does is the shutter timer.
Shooting options: Photo • Video • Beautify off • Beautify on
Manual mode offers control of the camera settings: white balance, focus, shutter speed (up to 1/2 second), ISO (up to 1600), and it lets you switch between the main, wide lens and the secondary telephoto lens.
Manual mode with: Wide lens • Tele lens
The camera settings are dynamic, so if you want to change the video resolution settings, you need to have the Video mode selected. There are a lot of settings to go around. You can disable the "Shot on Mi Mix 2S" watermark (which is on by default). You can adjust contrast, saturation, and sharpness to your liking - a nice option for those who like to edit all their photos.
Camera settings: Stills 1 • Stills 2 • Video 1 • Video 2
The Mi Mix 2S's age and gender detection feature was moved to a deeper menu, and we're okay with that. This feature is more novelty than it is useful. We guess it could be a tool to teach you to make a younger-looking pose but we may be overthinking it.
Image quality
The Mi Mix 2S's AI camera can detect several scenes and take photos that are optimized for those settings. Greenery scenes look greener, food looks brighter, and buildings look sharper. Professional photographers would likely never use such a feature since they would rather edit the photo themselves, but the end result looks great for social media.
We feel that Huawei overdid the AI stuff with the P20 to the point of oversaturation, but Xiaomi's implementation is not as drastic.
AI: Off • On (Food) • Off • On (Building)
AI can definitely get in the way of some other shots. Take this prime example while shooting this lake entrance. The camera detected clouds and automatically reduced shadows to let the clouds outlines become more pronounced. As a result, all the foliage from the shot looks dark and it just looks like this shot came from a low-end phone.
Slapping a filter on the non-AI shot would have looked much better than the resulting AI shot. Those clouds still look good, though.
Comparison shots from Huawei P20 Pro
Overall, there were a lot of great shots from this camera. The Mi Mix 2S struggled a bit in dynamic range, particularly in shadows - these were sometimes too dark. Despite this, photos were well exposed and colors were pretty neutral, though accurate, even during golden hour.
Photos are not too contrasty and easy on the sharpness, which is great if you like to edit your photos before posting them. Meanwhile, details are well preserved in most lighting situations. The camera does struggle to maintain details in mid to lower light conditions like in dim indoor settings but can unexpectedly pull through in nighttime scenes. A steady hand goes a long way, friends.
The very last shot above is 2X zoom, which worked fairly well in this dimly lit New York City bar. Once you zoom into the pixels, you can see the processing of the image. Even so, this image is still worthy of a social media post.
HDR mode is a strange case on the Mi Mix 2S. We used it in daytime situations with no luck. Whenever we enabled it, our shots got darker in the shadowy areas without fail and in a couple of cases, it even raised the highlights.
The resulting images are darker overall in the shadows and add contrast, which is the exact opposite that we'd expect from HDR mode. We'd recommend you avoid HDR mode and use an editing app to raise the shadows or darken highlights as needed - Instagram offers these editing tools. Perhaps Xiaomi will fix this in a future update.
The Mi Mis 2S can do 2X optical zoom with its dual camera. Here are a few samples, which actually look quite good. It does struggle a bit in less-than-ideal lighting, but works great for daytime sightseeing. When pixel peeping, you can tell there was some extra processing going on, but these are still very usable shots.
Here are a couple of more shots the Huawei P20 Pro's as well.
Mi Mix 2S (1X) • Mi Mix 2S (2X) • P20 Pro (1X) • P20 Pro (3X)
Portrait mode is here and it works pretty well. Granted, the bokeh line is generated by software, so it won't always be spot-on. Portrait mode relies on facial recognition to identify a subject and blur the surrounding area. We do admit that the phone had a harder time recognizing Enobong's darker-skin face. Once it did, though, the result was pretty good.
We did like that the camera didn't just blur everything around the subject. In the shot of our friend Enobong, only the background pillar was blurred but not the one closer to the camera. At the same time, in our shot of Ricky, the bike wasn't totally blurred out. Rather, it blurred the background and only part of the foreground - gently blending the blur effect with elements in the foreground so look somewhat more organic.
5MP Selfies
We have to say we were not crazy about the idea of a 5MP selfie camera. Naturally, we had low expectations. The selfie camera did better than we thought it would.
Beauty Mode off, Potrait mode: Off • On
Portrait didn't work as well with the front camera. Unless the hair line is clearly defined, we'd imagine you'd get the same results that we got with Ricky's selfies. The areas around his hair make it hard for the camera to separate the tree branches from his mane.
Beauty Mode 3/5, Portrait mode: Off • On
Beauty mode is turned on by default and is set to 3/5. Xiaomi said it worked hard to refine beauty mode and went as far as hiring makeup artists to paint the engineers so they could learn about how to contour certain of the face and what makes a face look prettier. Beauty mode isn't our thing, but Ricky sure looks pretty.
Beauty and Portrait modes aside, the details captured in the background are not bad compared to many other selfie cameras that aren't good at capturing details that are further away from the selfie taker. The sky is blown out on this cloudy day (as is normally the case) and all the selfies look warm since they were taken a couple of hours before the sunset.
Panorama
Panoramic mode is easy to use: point, shoot, and sweep. The strange thing is it only lets you sweep to the right. Taken with the phone in a portrait orientation, the image is 3,904 pixels tall. The image has a consistent exposure throughout and there are just a couple of misaligned stitches.
Video quality
The Mi Mix 2S can record 1080p and 2160p (4K resolutions). Xiaomi kept the number of video modes to a minimum: 720p, 1080p, and 4K. There is no 60 fps mode in any video resolution. Meanwhile, full OIS+EIS image stabilization exists in 1080p while 4K only gets OIS.
4K videos were recorded in 42 Mbps while 1080p videos were around 20.2 Mbps. Meanwhile, audio was recorded at 192Kbps in both resolutions. Audio was always recorded in stereo.
We do have to complain about the audio quality in videos: it's terrible. We'll reach out to Xiaomi to see if there's any chance we got defective unit or if this can be fixed via a software update.
Like any EIS system, the frame crops in for 1080p, so do keep that in mind.
Details are much degraded in video compared to still images. Dynamic range is not bad while color accuracy remains about as good as in still images. Exposure is well balanced but noise is apparent in some of these daytime scenes.
Night-time video wasn't too bad. We recorded this at the same New York City bar - there was plenty of noise, but it is expected. Otherwise, we're glad the shutter speed didn't drop to the point that any movement would appear super blurry.
As usual, we've provided unedited samples straight out of the camera for you to download - 2160p@30fps (15s, 78MB), and 1080@30fps (15s, 35MB).
Competition
Xiaomi aimed the Mi Mix 2S right at the entry-level premium price point: somewhere around 500 to 600 US dollars. This category includes smartphone with higher-end specs that have some sort of compromise in terms of functionality or hardware.
Not long ago, Black Shark (a smartphone company funded by Xiaomi) released a gaming phone whose specs are in-line with the Mi Mix 2S. It's a great option for those who'd rather trade the sleek polished ceramic look for a more edgy, rugged-gaming appearance. Otherwise, both devices use a Snapdragon 845 and should have similar gaming performance.
Honor's View 10 perfectly falls into this category as well. It has the latest internals from Huawei while using a more conventional metal construction without water-resistance. The cameras aren't Leica-branded, but you'll be able to get great shots with the View 10's dual cameras as well. Xiaomi's display is better-looking, though.
The iPhone X is certainly competition seeing as the Mi Mix 2S does a lot to make it comparable to the iPhone X. The truth is, you'll get a far better value from the Mi Mix 2S price range over the iPhone X's cost, which starts at $999. At the end of the day, it's up to each person to decide whether a smartphone that costs $999 is worth that much to them.
You may be able to find a great deal on a Mate 10 for about the same price as this guy. It doesn't have a tall display, but it offers a really compelling camera experience, huge battery, and expansive customization in EMUI.
Huawei Honor View 10 • Apple iPhone X • Huawei Mate 10
The Verdict
The Xiaomi Mi Mix 2S certainly does a great job of strengthening the Mi Mix 2's weaknesses - particularly, the camera. Although the front-facing camera is still a bummer at just 5MP, it's a worthy tradeoff to having a great-performing dual cameras on a Xiaomi smartphone.
The software experience is very smooth on the Mi Mix 2S and MIUI is quite well optimized to balance performance and battery life.
Pros
- Attractive ceramic back
- Latest Qualcomm CPU
- Wireless charging
- Great camera
Cons
- No water-resistance
- No justification for absence of headphone jack
- sub-par video quality
Xiaomi has revealed its plans to come to the US either later this year or early-2019. It will be tough, but if Xiaomi proves to American consumers that it can make quality smartphones at an amazing price, it might have what it takes to nudge its way to the Americas.
Naturally, we don't see Xiaomi flying into carrier stores right away, so it will likely appear in the online-retailer category of unlocked phones, which is a steadily growing niche market in the US.
Regardless of how it would perform in the US, the Xiaomi Mi Mix lineup has morphed from a large unicorn in its original model, to a more manageable and streamlined model, fit for the average consumer. The Mi Mix 2S is an incredible value at its price point and one that will be hard to beat, but will see fierce competition in the category in the several months to come.
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